Modern healthcare facilities now regularly utilize digital imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance (MR), computer tomography (CT), digital radiography, and ultrasound devices. These modalities, referred to as input imaging devices, produce vast numbers of diagnostic quality digital medical images. In order to more easily manage and distribute such digital images, many healthcare facilities rely upon compact recordable media, such as optically-recordable compact discs (CD) and digital video discs (DVD).
A formatting standard that is commonly used in the healthcare industry for recording such digital image data is the Diagnostic Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard. Through such a format, electronic data supporting digital images are recorded onto recordable media volumes as DICOM objects. The generation and recordation of such DICOM objects requires specific dedicated equipment, hardware, and software. While many facilities operate their own DICOM-compliant volume generation systems, some facilities find that owning, maintaining, and operating their own systems is expensive, and other facilities do not have the demand to justify owning, maintaining, and operating their own equipment. As such, there is a need in the art for systems that are capable of remotely receiving data and instruction from a healthcare facility to generate and distribute DICOM-compliant data object media volumes.
It is therefore a principal object of the present invention to provide a network-based system for receiving digital image data and instructions, and for generating DICOM-compliant media volumes comprising such digital image data, and automatically distributing such recorded media volumes to desired recipients.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a network-based system for remotely generating and distributing DICOM-compliant media volumes containing user-specified sets of digital image data.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an automated system which enables remote generation of digital image data-containing media volumes in a DICOM-compliant format, and for automatically labeling and shipping such media volumes to one or more desired recipients, while further automatically invoicing the requesting user.